


my body's nobody's body but mine

by SafelyCapricious



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 15:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sits up, alarmed, and immediately realizes that she has much larger concerns than not remembering going to her room last night.</p><p>First off, because she isn’t in her room. </p><p>She’s in Ward’s room. </p><p>And as a glance down confirms, she’s also in Ward’s body. It’s a different angle, but she would recognize those abs anywhere. </p><p>Body-Swap! Pre-HYDRA reveal (or potentially in a universe without any HYDRA at all).</p>
            </blockquote>





	my body's nobody's body but mine

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short little drabble. I don't know what happened either. 
> 
> This is my first finished biospecialist (I have a stupid amount partially done right now, I don't want to talk about my sudden obsession -- that's a lie, I totally want to talk about it. You can talk to me here or on my normal tumblr blog[here](http://safelycapricious.tumblr.com/).)

She is totally disoriented when she wakes up – not remembering having gone to bed the night before. The last thing she remembered was being in the field. No, she’d been in the lab last, hadn’t she? Examining the 0-8-4 they’d found (carefully still in containment). And then….And then Ward had come in. He’d had a complaint – a complaint or a question? Ugh. Her head is killing her. An attempt at opening her eyes ends with her grimacing at the light, so she keeps them shut and reaches up to rub at her temples. It feels weird, but it’s hard to consider over how much everything hurts.

Shit, is she hungover? 

She pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to get back her train of thought. Ward had come into the lab. He’d…he’d been worried because he’d been in the conference room and a video display showed some odd energy surges and he wanted to check on the 0-8-4. She’d gotten a field reader and tried to scan it, and the reader had gone dark. She’d….put it down on the table and turned away to get its power source, and it had exploded. Is that why she hurt? No, she’d been across the room. Ward though, Ward had been thrown and had gotten a cut on his face. She’d patched him up and they’d moved the 0-8-4 to an even more secure containment box, and she’d gone to run analysis on the explosion and Ward had gone to bed. 

That is it, the last thing she remembers. 

She lets out a huff of annoyance. She must’ve fallen asleep down at the lab, and someone moved her – and by someone she obviously means Ward. This wouldn’t be the first time and, quite frankly, it’s getting embarrassing. Before when she fell asleep wherever she’d just wake up there too – not have to deal with the indignity of being carried to her bed! (Especially since she was always asleep and ergo didn’t remember it. It wouldn’t be so bad, she’s sure, if she could remember the carrying.) 

She brings up her other hand to rub at her face, hoping that if she just compresses her brain the pounding in her temples that’s developing. And feels that someone has glued (glued? Stuck? Grafted?) something to her face – it feels a bit…hairy. 

She sits up, alarmed, and immediately realizes that she has much larger concerns than not remembering going to her room last night.

First off, because she isn’t in her room. 

She’s in Ward’s room. 

And as a glance down confirms, she’s also in Ward’s body. It’s a different angle, but she would recognize those abs anywhere. 

She scrambles out of the bed, being even less graceful than normal as her coordination is not used to the new dimensions – not to mention a totally new center of gravity. 

She nearly crashes into the wall and has to catch herself with her hands, and she notes that her reaction time seems distinctly better. She takes a deep breath, and this time when she tries moving she does it slowly, testing her steps like she’s walking on ice. 

Once she’s got the hang of walking more or less down, she stares at herself in a mirror for several long minutes. Ward sleeps shirtless, apparently, in really comfortable sleep pants and without, she absolutely checks, underwear. It feels super weird to pet abs that she’s never had, but, well, she’s always kind of wanted to poke at them and was pretty sure Ward wouldn’t let her – and wow she really could study all kinds of anatomy and physiology using just him couldn’t she?

This is fascinating. She needs to be taking notes, and that’s really what motivates her to move away from the mirror and carefully out of the room. It takes her a little longer to get down to the lab than normal, and she notes that while her depth perception seems to have changed she’s adjusting to it very quickly.

Weirder than waking up in Ward’s body is seeing her own slumped over the lab table. And that’s when the concern hits – because what if while she’s in Ward he’s…somewhere else and no one is in her and – she could be dead!

Her heart rate picks up, and even that feels different, as she reaches out to rest her fingers on her own pulse. She slumps forward slightly when the beat is strong under her fingers, and then she pokes at her own side and – she’s just going to start thinking of her body as Ward. Well, unless someone else is in there?

“Ward, wake up.” Oh weird, that’s definitely Ward’s voice. She can perfect her impressions! 

Her own head swings up, and her eyes look far more alert than she’s pretty sure she’s ever looked right upon waking. Her hair, however, is a mess, and she’s reflexively reaching up to fix it, except she’s trying to fix her hair like her body is a mirror and – Ward’s hair in the body she is occupying is not a mess. 

Her body stares at her for only a moment before springing back off the stool and away from her. “What the fuck – who are you?” Her voice is ridiculously high pitched – has it always sounded like that? It sounds deeper in her own head and that’s just odd – she understands the theory, but still. She really needs to take notes. 

She’s reaching to do just that when she responds, “It’s Jemma, Ward. I’m not sure how we switched bodies, but we definitely switched bodies. Is your head hurting right now? What’s the last thing you remember from last night? You are Ward, right?” 

Ward doesn’t bother to nod, he’s too busy staring down at himself and yup, now he’s cupping her breasts. Well, she can’t exactly object since she did spend a good fifteen minutes enjoying her new six pack. 

She starts to write down her own experience, this is definitely going to be an amazing paper! Granted, only SHIELD agents will be able to read it, due to the subject matter, but it’ll still be totally worth it. 

In her periphery she can see Ward freaking out – or at least she’s nearly positive that’s what the weird face he’s making in her body means. 

She’s almost done with her preliminary notes on her experience when he storms back over, and from the thunderous expression on her body’s face she’s sure he’s going to start demanding she fix it, or something, so she cuts him off at the pass. 

“Let me get a blood and tissue sample from both of us, then we need to be hooked up to some sensors. The most likely explanation is that it has something to do with the 0-8-4, so I’ll have to do more analytics on that. Give me my left arm, that vein is a little more prominent.” She smiles and rummages around for her equipment, as Ward quietly, frowning, sits down. 

She keeps a steady stream of hypotheses as she gets everything arranged, and she’s pleased to note that Ward does start responding, and relaxing, after only a few minutes of it. 

She’s just unhooking him from the last machine when he becomes more serious, “You can fix this, right?” 

She nods and hums, before handing him a sample cup, “Urine sample please.” And then promptly goes back to what she’s doing. 

She can see him though, just standing there, clutching the cup and staring at her. Finally she looks up, arches an eyebrow and waits, and he stares at the cup then back at her, “You can’t be serious.” 

Frowning she nods slowly, “But I am serious. Why is this problematic for you?” 

He shifts uncomfortably then gestures down, “…You know?” 

She obligingly glances down and can’t see anything amiss, so she shrugs, “No?” 

And oh, he’s blushing. Oh, she’s rather cute when she blushes – that’s good to know. She’s never seen it from the outside before. “But isn’t it…an invasion of privacy?” 

Her face clears as she finally understands what he’s uncomfortably talking around, “Oh no, I don’t think so. I mean, it is inevitable. Both of us will have to urinate, and at some point defecate. Given the circumstances I don’t suspect we have much of a choice. So we both must promise to be respectful and trust that the other will do likewise, yes?” 

He nods, looking slightly ill, “Yes. I suppose….Yeah. Of course. Okay.” And he straightens his shoulders and walks out of the room like he’s going to do battle. 

It takes nearly an hour for her to collect the last of the samples from both of them, and by then Ward has notified Coulson of the situation. Skye comes by and pokes her for nearly ten minutes, asking questions that are actually helpful, if not the true spirit behind her asking. (Like, “But does he have feelings? Do you feel more like a robot?” Which leads to Jemma checking her pain receptors and deciding that the ones in his body are slightly dulled, but not as much as would be expected given his nonreactions to things like getting shot.)

Fitz tries to physically restrain her when she goes to urinate for the second time, not in a cup. Her pointing out it’s already happened just increases his fervor, and it’s not until she’s tartly telling him, “You’re behaving as if this is the first time I’ve ever seen a male’s reproductive organs. It’s not.” That he seems to fall back in shock and let her through. (Not that she couldn’t have forced her way through, but it seemed rude.) 

Ward, in her body, spends most of the morning working out. And then complaining about her weakness and lack of stamina – which is just rude. Especially because it’s likely she’ll be the one to have to deal with the soreness of her body once she figures out the reversal process.

She will admit to being somewhat amused when, upon giving up on getting more done, Ward comes into the lab dripping of sweat, and Skye blithely tells him to go shower. He turns brightly pink, and Jemma turns to Skye. “Quick, tell me something embarrassing – I wonder if our bodies actually blush with differing amounts of ease!” 

Skye blinks, “Uh, Ward’s about to see you naked?” 

Jemma waves that off, “Yes of course he is, it’s only fair in any case, since I’ve seen him naked.”

Ward can be heard choking in the background, Skye is eyeing her speculatively and Jemma is impatiently bouncing slightly. “Um. You are the worst at undercover? Do you remember talking to Sitwell? That, that was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for you.” 

Jemma knows that mention of that incident always makes heat rise to her face, and she can feel it now, but much less – and when she checks a mirror her color is nearly exactly the same – or Ward’s body’s color rather. 

She’s diligently taking notes on the phenomena when Skye asks, shifty, “So, uh, when’d you see Ward naked?” 

Jemma waves a hand, “Oh, well not all at once. But he sleeps shirtless, and well, every time he gets injured his shirt comes off anyways – and I’ve already had to urinate several times today. His body does not seem used to the amount of tea I consume.” 

In the end, solving the problem comes down to re-exposure to the 0-8-4 and then constant exposure to each other until the switch takes hold. 

They settle on the couch, Jemma shirtless in Ward’s body, and Ward wearing only a very small tanktop in Jemma’s to increase skin to skin contact. Ward seems deeply uncomfortable, even going so far as to commandeer a blanket to drape over them once they’ve settled down, Jemma holding Ward, given his bigger body mass. 

Skye immediately makes a comment about no funny business under the blanket, that causes Ward to throw it away from them, blushing bright, and to instead cross his arms over his, well, her, chest. 

They stay there through dinner, through a very short game of Scrabble (Jemma and Ward working together given their proximity issues really makes the game very onesided.) and through everyone else dropping off to go to bed. 

Ward is now completely relaxed against her, and she can feel the muscles in her body relaxing likewise, more than she thinks they had all day. It’s very odd. 

She’s considering how to ask about it when she finds herself suddenly horribly tired, and she doesn’t manage to finish the thought, let alone form words. 

She comes to, warm and comfortable, curled against Ward’s chest. She shifts and his arms tighten around her. She subsides and decides to stay there, however long it will last. He wakes easily, and it’s only a matter of time…but it’s nice. 

She’s very good at compartmentalizing, at not letting herself wonder ‘what if’, at getting done what needs to be done and not dwelling on what can’t be. But, well, yesterday was very, very long. And so she gives herself the freedom. 

Closing her eyes again she lets herself imagine that this is normal, waking up in his arms. That once he wakes up he’ll kiss her, never mind the morning breath because he can’t wait to kiss her. And then maybe she’ll get up and make them breakfast – and he’ll make her tea for her, wrapping his arms around her in the kitchen—

His arms tighten further as he shifts and she can practically feel him wake up. She shoves her daydream back into her mind and shifts away from him so she can meet his eyes. 

Her smile is bright, “It worked.” 

His smile is smaller, and he glances over her as if to make sure she hasn’t lost any limbs over the course of the night, “I’m glad. I much prefer not having to stare at my own face.”

She giggles and starts to extract herself further from the embrace, only having some issues with how their legs have gotten tangled in the blanket over the course of the night, “To celebrate, would you care to join me for breakfast?” 

His smile is wide as he stands up much more gracefully after her, “I’d be honored.” His tucks some of her hair behind her ear, and she’s momentarily frozen, unable to tell if his hand lingers or if it’s only in her mind. “I’ll make the tea.” 

She takes a moment to re-center, reminding herself that they’re teammates and he would never be interested in someone as boring as her. 

He glances back at her and arches an eyebrow to see her stationary, which launches her into motion. Within minutes she’s cooking up quite a large breakfast – large enough for the rest of the team to join when they finally wake up. 

The tea he makes her is perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta'd, so please let me know if you see anything that needs correcting! (Or if you're willing to beta biospecialist! My normal beta doesn't ship it particularly, so I feel bad about trying to make her edit for me.) 
> 
> You can find my writing blog [right here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/).


End file.
